


Il Dottore

by Cervineghost, twofoldAxiom



Series: A Cantabile Flight [1]
Category: Frankenstein & Related Fandoms, Frankenstein - Mary Shelley, Greek Tragedy, Greek and Roman Mythology, LOVECRAFT H. P. - Works, Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Horror, Body Horror, Dark Fantasy, F/M, Fantasy Venice, Horror, Mild Gore, Prosthesis, Surgery, Surgical Horror, Venezia | Venice, automatons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 08:01:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15238971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cervineghost/pseuds/Cervineghost, https://archiveofourown.org/users/twofoldAxiom/pseuds/twofoldAxiom
Summary: Engineer, doctor, scientist, god. There's no going back for Dr. Giles, for the sake of his greatest work.A tale of taking the first, uneasy steps into what lies beyond mortal science, the spiral out of control within the arms of the unknown, and the sacrifice of humanity one makes along the way, for what worth those sacrifices may have.





	Il Dottore

**Author's Note:**

> First original work in a LONG time but I figured I'd post it here on AO3 because it is, in a way, a fusion/AU of all the above fandoms set in Fantasy Renaissance Venice. Any historical inaccuracies are, well, because it's _fantasy_ Renaissance Venice. I hope you all enjoy!
> 
> Co-written by Cervineghost. Thank u for all ur input and I'm really really glad that I'm getting back into this kind of thing.
> 
> (Disclaimer: Update schedule will be inconsistent at best because I have a lot of other shit to be working on that I'm pretty sure y'all are more interested in anyway.)

His name was, in formal company, the famed doctor Felix Giles. An engineer as well as a man of medicine and philosophy, and charming as he was enigmatic.

At least, so was said for his reputation, though a number of people who'd been in his presence could easily say otherwise. They never chose to do so, of course, as a favor to the good doctor, and that was how he preferred it when he wasn't forcing himself to schmooze among the Civetrian nobility.

It was all about reputation. It was always about reputation. They could be ruined if anyone knew what he'd done for them, beyond their aquiline noses and perfect lips, the gleaming clockwork of their fanciful regalia and the fluid click of elaborate prostheses. He could be ruined if they so chose to call him what he was: An ill-mannered boor, barely hanging on to his composure in the face of their pomp and circumstance. The city hung onto their every word, and to be shunned by them would do him no favors.

He needed all the favors he could get. That was why he was risking that reputation and all their ephemeral graces for this; if he was caught, that would be it for all of them, wouldn't it?

Tempting. But not as tempting as what he was really after.

The evening was lively and bright with lanterns, and masked faces peered out of windows before ducking back behind fine, lace-trimmed curtains, laughter and music fluttering out onto the streets. Silk fans and handkerchiefs covered smiling, red-stained mouths, as young lovers eyed each other across the waterways. Civitra smelled of sea and night flowers, blooms imported from faraway gardens to grace young women's shawls and hair.

Giles left himself blind to it all. He was careful to look straight ahead, plain and serious in his own severe, pointed mask. Summer heat bore down on humid Civitra, and his coat hung over his shoulders, buttoned only at the throat while his mask slipped down his nose with sweat. It only made it harder for him to look serious; there was no escaping that heat here, even with the saltwater canals flowing through the city.

He prayed, as much as someone like him could pray. Hoped, rather, that he wasn't making a fool of himself. He'd passed by several other houses with those who might call on him on his way here, red handkerchiefs stuffed full of herbs tied over doorways that marked the houses of the summer fevered, but his footfalls were even, his strides long, and before he knew it, he stood before a carved doorway with none of the crushed flowers hanging in the way.

He knocked twice, loudly, with the brass knocker cool in his gloved fingers. The door opened with a servant in a plainer mask than his, hardly more than a strip of white cloth with cutouts over the eyes.

"Doctor Giles." The servant said, with a nod of the head. Giles brushed past him, glancing around the room. It didn't reek of any illness, and he was starting to think he'd been had, but there was, perhaps, the upstairs bedroom. He glanced to the servant again.

"You're expected in the study." The servant said, walking brusquely forward. Once, he glanced over his shoulder at Giles with one, clear implication: Follow me.

So Giles followed. The study doors loomed before him, and he paid them no mind, practically flinging the heavy wood open and peering into the gloom beyond.

It was darker than he expected, for the Civetrian style at least. It was exactly as ornate, of course, with loops and whorls and leering faces delicately picked out in the floor moulding, and the somber frescoes he could just barely make out by the candlelight.

His "patient", the middle-aged man sitting at the massive desk that dominated the room, smiled at him beneath a mask studded with dark stones, the wide eyes framed with peacock feathers. When he stood, he leaned against the desk for support, and gestured for his servant to bring him one of the canes in a stand near the door.

Giles raised an eyebrow at that. Why put them so far away, then, and since when did the baron need canes? He watched and found himself outright staring when the servant helped the old man- the Baron Vecellio- to his feet and led him a few steps from the desk. At first, Giles thought the old man's boots mismatched; it was with the faint click of doll-like joints settling as they bore weight that he realized the white one was, in fact, a prosthetic made of bone-pale panels and carved sections of bleached wood.

"Doctor Giles, thank you for coming." Vecellio tried to bow, but his servant held him steady before he could put himself through too much strain. He stopped himself after that, taking the dog-headed cane handle he was offered and limping his way to the doctor. Giles was too busy staring at the wooden leg to really take it in when Vecellio wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "And what have you been up to recently? What marvels have you wrought, to and from Civetra on your many travels?"

Giles finally snapped out of it. "Your leg." He said. "I'd wondered why you'd commissioned me something like that; had I known I was building it for you, I'd have made something finer than the one I have ready at my clinic."

Vecellio's eyes gleamed behind his mask, vitreous and cataract ridden. Giles thought to himself how much easier it would be on the man to have them operated on. It would, at the very least, look less eerie behind his mask of choice.

"It doesn't particularly matter to me, doctor, what the leg is made of, or the style of it. I trust in your ability and your handiwork, and I didn't want to limit your... creative process, as it were. You have the sketches, yes?" His milky gaze turned towards the heavy coat, the many pockets stitched into it, the long shirtsleeves tucked and buttoned smartly into fine leather gloves. If Giles found the gaze unsettling, he was at least not going to show it to such a valued patient and customer.

With a flourish, Giles took a single step back and produced the sketches from one of his many pockets. Grasping, skeletal, liverspotted hands found the edge of the paper and he let go so Vecellio could see his diagrams of the leg he'd been building. He was a little perturbed, admittedly, but he wasn't a stranger to it, and he'd been away a long time, but not so long that he'd forgotten what a friend to him Vecellio had been. Currently was.

Candlelight bled through the paper. The diagrams showed a prosthetic leg, joined into the flesh up the thigh with a series of straps and carefully laid coverings. It was obviously built for a much younger man, with the amount of surgery that would go into fitting it to the body, but despite his age and many ailments kept himself in as sharp a condition as modern man could manage. As a doctor, Giles wondered how the weight might affect the man's movement and stamina, how he might heal around it. As an engineer, he felt a swell of pride at the soft, pleased chortle Vecellio made at the sight.

Vecellio looked up at him, doffing his mask from his squarish face. It looked friendlier without that garish thing in the way. Giles removed his own, thankful for the sudden rush of cool air against his sweaty brow, and Vecellio studied his face maybe a little too intently, or perhaps he could hardly see him at all.

That thought was dispelled quickly, when Vecellio frowned at him. "You've grown gaunt, doctor; pale and unwell. I'd have thought your travels would bring you a sort of vitality. What ails you?"

"No ailment. And please, just call me Felix; you've known me since I was a boy." Giles noted how Vecellio's eyes twinkled in amusement at that, though he tried to look stern.

"I will not be minimizing your accomplishments in this home, doctor; you've done great things here and beyond, and you deserve the recognition. But it seems you yourself don't trouble with using your learning on yourself."

"What doctor would I be if I  _did_? I wouldn't want to mutilate myself even for the finest prosthesis in the land, unlike, perhaps, your contemporaries." Ah, perhaps he went a little far there; the mirth in Vecellio's face flickered for a moment, and Giles felt maybe a little guilt at bringing it up. He wouldn't back down on it, though; he couldn't. He never could. "Would that be why your own has needed replacement? I can't imagine you would lop it off yourself for the sake of fashion, when you've been the way you have for so long. I can't remember the last time you've given thought to the prattle and pretensions of the court."

"How rude." Vecellio chortled again, but nervously now. He shook his head and tried to return the parchments, but Giles balked, sneering down at him. Vecellio looked hurt, even, and cast his eyes heavenward in exasperation. "Please, not  _this_  again, my dear friend."

"I'm not some dreaming artist, Vecellio. I'm an engineer and a  _doctor_. All this time, I thought I was building something to help someone improve their quality of life, not appease their- their  _vanity_." 

He could feel eyes and ears around them. It was eerily quiet in the study, but for the popping of bubbles in hot, imperfect wax, the sounds of their breathing and the creak of the house around them. Servants would surely be listening in, or peering through cracks in the walls and doors. He curled his lip up again in another sneer, but lowered his voice, for Vecellio's sake.

Reputation, after all.

"What do you want for it?" Vecellio watched him now, with the attentiveness of someone who only wanted to please, though Giles couldn't imagine why. "You could stay here, you know; I could be your patron, fund your studies and research. I could help you."

Tempting, but Giles shook his head, focused on his goal. "I want one thing." He said.

"Name it." Vecellio wrung his fine-boned, slender hands. Giles couldn't stay mad at him, but he didn't want to show that either; this was his chance. His heart drummed in his ears as he slid his mask back onto his face, the long beak at least giving him some room to breathe as he tied the ribbon behind his head. Vecellio did the same, though the silence seemed to be wearing him thin by the second.

Giles spoke, coolly, at last. "I want a heart." He said. Vecellio paled as he continued. "No older than thirty, no younger than twenty five; but preferably,  _exactly_ , at twenty seven. A woman's heart, healthy and active. I want it fresh, still bloody even. I don't care how she looked besides. If you can bring me this, I'll build anything else you want, and sing your praises to the court besides. I'll give you the finest work I can make"

His eyes narrowed, slitted in the eyeholes of his mask, as Vecellio stared at him. But Vecellio had promised anything, and it wouldn't do for him to rescind it now, especially with a doll's leg where his left one below the knee had been.

"Of course." Vecellio finally said. "You shall have this heart by tomorrow morning, fresh as the fishermen's catch."

With a nod, Giles turned away. The white-masked servant showed him to the door, not meeting his eye, and he wondered how much had been heard. The night was only barely cooler than it had been when he'd arrived, and frustrated as he was by it, he tightened his mask a little too far. An ache began forming between his eyes.

He began walking again, down the way he came, though his pace was less frantic, less purposeful now, as though he drifted in a dream. He lingered by doorways and listened, under the lantern lights and the glow of windows. Amid the rush of water from the canals, the laughter of partygoers, the quiet murmur of lovers, he could hear it: Sobbing, praying, begging. Delirious murmuring, pained groans. It wasn't supposed to be deadly; summer fever would always be a part of life in Civetra. But it could make way for something that  _was_ ,  and as he lingered by a doorway with the sachet of herbs nailed to the frame, he could only think of how long he'd spent ignoring the suffering in the sultry heat.

He'd lied about not ailing. He was obsessed, heartsick for her, stricken with worse than even the summer fevers for his Eva Galatea. His eyes went steely as he left the doorway and stalked back to his clinic and workshop, closing the door behind him and turning the lock. He shed his coat almost furiously, and tossed away his mask with it, leaving them on the floor. Let it be a worry for another day.

He headed to the backroom, lingering at the door here as well. The work table was a grisly scene, like a murder, or a surgery gone wrong. On it lay a marvel of medicine and engineering, steel and flesh, everything he'd worked towards in the past ten years. She was nearly complete. He had all the physical parts but the heart now; all that was left were the heart and the soul and the voice, and the latter two would be within his grasp if he just got the right heart.

He ran his fingers over her brow, the subtle curve of her nose. Her glassy eyes stared at the ceiling, unseeing. He removed one glove and, with the care of a hundred failures and mistakes before this moment, closed her eyes. He couldn't have her going blind before he was finished.

He sighed and sat beside her. Vats of ichor surrounded her. Pumps and pistons kept it flowing through her artificial veins. He would be the first since the very beginning of man, since the age of gods, to bring artifice to life. It should have been simple, but hundreds of failures, hundreds of  _murders_ , had taught him there was more to creating life than the mechanical push and pull of flesh.

Every part of Eva, he'd built from scratch, studying hundreds of dissected bodies and parts, rotten and fresh, young and old, essential and frivolous, just to understand what needed to be there, what could be left out, what could be  _improved_.

She would be more than human. She would be a goddess.

The leg Vecellio had asked him for lay on another table, a sick imitation of flesh to him now. Bronze and iron and careful inlays- wasted on the old man who'd once been his friend. But if he brought him that heart, it wouldn't matter. Giles stood from where he sat, wiped his sweaty face, and began to modify it for Vecellio's shape, carefully paring away material where it wouldn't fit him, tightening or loosening panels, extending the joints where he needed them. 

He could turn in nothing but perfection for him, for reputation's sake. For Eva's sake. For love's sake.


End file.
